Selective memory: do we only remember what matters?

We call cases of selective memory to those situations where someone appears to show an exceptional ability to recall information that reinforces their point of view. view but is significantly forgetful about other information related to the first but which is uncomfortable.

We talk about this selective memory sarcastically, implying that it is a sign of argumentative weakness or an illusory view on certain issues. As if it were something exceptional, regardless of the normative way of thinking.

However, the truth is that selective memory is by no means a simple resource that some people use to cling to beliefs and ideologies that can be jeopardized with certain ease. The human memory, in general, it tends to work the same way in all people, and not only in relation to specific and controversial topics, but also with regard to private beliefs and memories autobiographical.

In short, healthy people with good abilities to debate without constantly clinging to dogmas are also subjects who think and remember through the filter of a selective memory.

Selective memory and identity

Memory is the basis of our identity. After all, we are a mixture of our genetics and the experiences we have lived, and the latter can only leave an imprint on us through memory.

However, this means that our identity is a compressed version of all the events in which we have participated directly or indirectly, as if each and every day that we have lived was archived somewhere of human brain in equivalent amounts and well proportioned to each other. To believe this would be to assume that our memory is reproductive, a kind of exact recording of what we have perceived and thought. And it is not: we only remember what is meaningful to us in some way.

This is selective memory. In making the content of our own memories linked to those values, needs and motivations that define our way of perceiving things, causing some memories to pass the filter into long-term memory and others not do.

Creating meaningful memories

Since the investigations of psychologist Gordon Bower show the link between our emotional states and the way in which we memorize and remember all kinds of information, The idea that our memory works in a skewed way even in healthy brains has gained much popularity in psychology.

Today, in fact, the idea that memory is selective by default is becoming well founded. For example, there are some studies that show that, deliberately, we are able to use strategies to forget memories that do not suit us, while the lines of research that address the issue of cognitive dissonance show that we have a certain propensity to basically memorize things that are not in doubt beliefs important to us and that, therefore, can be related to a meaning Sure.

The process would go like this: we find information that does not fit with our beliefs and that, therefore, produces us discomfort because it calls into question ideas important to us and in the defense of which we have spent time and efforts.

However, the fact that this information has had an impact on us does not have to make it better memorized because it is relevant. In fact, its importance as something that causes us discomfort can be a reason that is worth, in itself, to manipulate and distort this memory until it becomes unrecognizable and ends up disappearing as such.

Selective memory bias

That the normal functioning of memory is selective is very relevant, since it is further proof that our nervous system is made more to survive than to know the environment in which we live faithfully and relatively objectively.

In addition, researching about selective memory allows us to seek strategies to take advantage of this phenomenon by exploring techniques to make traumatic and unpleasant memories in general not a limiting factor in the quality of life of the people.

Be clear that there is no single and correct way to remember your own life trajectory, but rather we have the possibility to choose between equally biased views on who we are and what we have done, can serve to eliminate biases about trauma treatment therapies and encourage us to look for ways adaptive to make our memory a factor that contributes well-being to our way of life, instead of giving us problems.

A more realistic view

Selective memory is proof that neither our identity nor what we think we know about the world They are objective truths that we have access to simply because a lot of time has passed existing. In the same way that our attention is focused on some things in the present and leaves out others, something very similar happens with memory.

As the world is always overflowing with an amount of information that we can never process in fully, we must choose what to attend to, and this is something we do consciously or unconsciously. The exception is not what we are not aware of and that we do not know well, but what we do have a relatively complete knowledge of. By default, we are not aware of what happened, what is happening or what will happen.

This is partly positive and partly negative, as we have already seen. It is positive because it allows us to leave out information that is not relevant, but it is negative because the existence of biases is introduced. Having this clear will allow us not to have unrealistic expectations about our ability to know ourselves and everything around us.

Bibliographic references:

• Ardila, R. (2004). Psychology in the Future. Madrid: Pyramid.
• Gross, Richard (2010). Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behavior. London: Hachette UK.
• Papalia, D. and Wendkos, S. (1992). Psychology. Mexico: McGraw-Hill, p. 9.
• Triglia, Adrián; Regader, Bertrand; García-Allen, Jonathan (2016). Psychologically speaking. Paidos.